The present invention relates to an indirect control and ministering apparatus to train horses and concurrently administer care as required, particularly as the horse is mounted by its rider, using a non-abusive and non-injurious reward/punishment approach to conditioning the horse to respond properly to commands issued by the horse handler.
Ever since man succeeded in domesticating the horse to use it as an extension of his own limited capabilities, man has had to train horses to respond to his commands properly. Because of the relative position of the horse and the handler, when the horse is being either driven or ridden, the mode of interaction between horse and man, and the degree thereof, are necessarily limited. The major mode of interaction is mostly based on the premise that the horse should either obey and respond properly or be punished (negative feedback only). There is usually no immediate positive feedback between the two parties if and when the horse behaves and responds appropriately, because man normally expects it from the horse who, in turn, has no notion as to why this, instead of that. The positive feedback communication between man and horse is usually limited to voice and physical (patting) contacts. Such feedback media are inherently limitative as to the intensity and the exact meaning of the feedback message. They mostly help man feel good, a state of affair which the horse will eventually construe as being good for him also, as the horse may in time make the correct connection between the expression of the man's feelings (even mood) and the concurrent lack of punishment. Such a hit-and-miss drawn out conditioning process is neither very effective nor temporally efficient, and certainly frustrating to the horse.
Animal trainers known that the consciousness span of their subjects is usually very short, compared to that of man, even shorter for horses than for dogs, for instance. Dispensing rewards or punishments should follow the animal response immediately, or even better, occur concurrently. Instant gratification is most meaningful and effective. To emphasize the reward value, the punishment should be administered the same way as the reward is, and not only by its absence. A correlation between the causes and the effects is much more easily made when sensations result from the same type of stimulation (sense and location), though such sensations may be of opposite natures. Horses are endowed with the same senses as man. Because two of these senses were particularly useful for the survival of the species, horses have keen senses of hearing and taste. Also, because of the special and unique conformation of the horse's mouth and jaws, from time immemorial, man has used objects inserted in the horse's mouth to govern him, and sometimes, to administer punishment.
Thus it seem logical, practical, efficient and natural to utilize such already existing controlling and punishing means, positioned where the sense of taste is located, for also dispensing rewards. It is therefore desirable to combine the control/punishing means now universally used for horses with the reward dispensing apparatus.